The Pros and Cons of Clinical Trials on Prisoners

Prisoners who take part in clinical trials are dangerously vulnerable to exploitation, says Vera Hassner Sharav, founder of the Alliance for Human Research Protection.

But Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown law and public health professor and chairman of a recent Institute of Medicine committee on prisoner research, says that prisoners excluded from clinical trials are denied the benefits of science.

Sharav: … inmates are not only less expensive than chimps, they have fewer government protections. Annual reports submitted to Congress document the number and disposition of every chimp (and dog and hamster) used in research trials. But no federal law requires anyone to keep track of the number of humans used—or harmed—in clinical trials.
In fact, the only protection prisoners have against being subjected to experimental abuse hangs on the thread of a single federal regulation,
Subpart C of the Common Rule, and that regulation governs just federally funded research.

Gostin: Unquestionably, there’s something wrong with how research is conducted in prisons. But if we can correct the problems, then such research will yield a world of good. Sound research can profoundly improve the welfare of inmates. For example, if prisoners are enrolled in studies of such diseases as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C and tuberculosis—which afflict prisoners in disproportionately high numbers—they could benefit from any finding or treatment discovered.